Overflow Southsun waypoint = Insta Kill

So I ported into a Southsun waypoint and get booted into overflow where the waypoint is contested and overrun with karka.

Killed instantly, no time to react, no time to dodge, frozen in place and just watched my character die. If this isn’t a bug that needs fixing I don’t know what is.

Southsun is a zone I have truly come to loathe, starting from when it was introduced with the lagfest of the Lost Shore event to the disappointing Living Story ending, it was always a badly designed zone and now this little surprise. Overflow camps need to have these events disabled or we need to get ported to another waypoint if its contested, not into the middle of a bunch of mobs.

Yeah and even when you just use the Kiel’s waypoint and don’t get moved to a different server, it might not be contested but there is often a Reef Drake there RIGHT at the WP. Can kill you if you load slow or just aren’t ready for it to be there.

Just watched the numbers while i reflected a karka burst using my engineer’s shield today, and each of the projectiles hit harder than my bombs! If you get 2-3 or these firing at you at once and you’re not expecting it, it is game over no matter what. And you can easily go beyond 3 during the Steampipe events.

Honestly, either Steampipe scaling is broken or someone went overboard on the default settings. Came across it today, all the karka were 83-84 and i counted multiple groups of 6-7. And it seemed to have been this way for quite some time.

One at that level is enough to drop anything short of a vitality tank in a single burst, so 6 of them can really lay on the pain.

Honestly, either Steampipe scaling is broken or someone went overboard on the default settings. Came across it today, all the karka were 83-84 and i counted multiple groups of 6-7. And it seemed to have been this way for quite some time.

One at that level is enough to drop anything short of a vitality tank in a single burst, so 6 of them can really lay on the pain.

Holy crud, no wonder I went down so fast. Hopefully someone will adjust that.

I will take the advice and use one of the port Waypoints (then pay even more silver if the Waypoint I actually want is uncontested). I think I’d just prefer a higher waypoint cost on the island rather than this mechanic.

Yep, it also explains why the protection event fails if the karka ever start spawning on the inside (they are supposedly tunneling in, but the dust plume is a no-show thanks to culling).

This because as usual NPCs and such do not scale along with the mobs (Grenth, anyone?). Meaning that even a single supercharged karka or popper near the Steampipe center and we instantly go form a protect to a recapture.

Also, i suspect that once a event has scaled up it seems to not scale down again until finished or failed (and recapture events do not fail).

Wait, since when can waypointing land you in Overflow if you aren’t already in overflow? I’ve never had that happen and was pretty sure it couldn’t, thought the only things that could put you into Overflow if you’re already in the normal server were times when you actually leave the map entirely (dungeon, instance, or zoning to a different map).

What probably happened was that you waypointed, and then the event started up while you were loading in. At least that would be my guess.

But regardless of the specifics, I definitely agree that these events are creating some pretty major problems with safety. Its kind of odd that the safest places to log out

Maybe the problems will diminish some once the event ends and the amount of people in Southsun dwindles a bit. Once the events stop spawning 30 level 84-karka, maybe they’ll be less of a pain.

I think some of them could use a second look regardless, though. Steampipe especially, as already mentioned. Place gets overrun in the blink of an eye, and the fact that the enemies spawn inside the settlement means that actually defending the settlement is very difficult or impossible depending on luck (if the enemies decide to attack the defense target right off the bat, there’s little you can do). They should all spawn outside, maybe have them come from all 4 directions if it needs some extra challenge (the 2 gates to Driftglass, the bridge, and the gate that opens up in the direction of Kiel’s), but having them spawn inside is just cheap, and makes for some major problems of people getting insta-ganked by a swarm of karka and dying in a second.

I also question why waves of enemies spawn even when the events are inactive. Maybe its meant to simulate the crazed animals and how relentless they are, and its OK in some of the other settlements where its only 2 or 3 at a time, but again going back to Steampipe, entire waves of karka / reef riders will spawn even between the actual events. And they’re all scaled up to level 84 as well, which is especially weird since IMO only events should have scaled enemies, normal enemies that are just part of the world should never scale. So many times I’ve seen a wave of enemies spawn during a non-event period, half the players there will try to fight them while the other half are not paying attention (and why would they, there’s no event going on so why expect waves of enemies to appear) and the entire group trying to fight them gets killed off because they’re scaled to the whole group.

It’s not a bug, it’s just the way things go down sometimes. I don’t know why anyone would WP to Southsun anyway when you can go to Lion’s Arch instead and just port to Southsun for free. Then it’s a quick jog to the action, and in such a way that you can easily see if anythign nasty is waiting for you.

I think some of them could use a second look regardless, though. Steampipe especially, as already mentioned. Place gets overrun in the blink of an eye, and the fact that the enemies spawn inside the settlement means that actually defending the settlement is very difficult or impossible depending on luck (if the enemies decide to attack the defense target right off the bat, there’s little you can do). They should all spawn outside, maybe have them come from all 4 directions if it needs some extra challenge (the 2 gates to Driftglass, the bridge, and the gate that opens up in the direction of Kiel’s), but having them spawn inside is just cheap, and makes for some major problems of people getting insta-ganked by a swarm of karka and dying in a second.

Yeah, it’s pretty absurd. If you get a Veteran, or a Champion Karka, they oneshot the defense.